


Card Declined

by ArtificialFlavorz



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Humor, One Shot, Romance, percabeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialFlavorz/pseuds/ArtificialFlavorz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Air travel is literally the worst. (one-shot)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Card Declined

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Percy Jackson blog. (byfar-theworstpirate.tumblr.com)   
> Inspired by the Orlando and Denver International Airports. Enjoy!

It’s a nightmare from the moment she suggests it— visiting her family in California ‘just for the weekend,’ as if it’s already been decided, which it hasn’t. He points out that, one, her family in New York were enough to contend with as it was, that it was totally unnecessary for him to meet her father and step-whatever’s until they were engaged, which they weren’t yet, and that, two, five days was not ‘the weekend’. She retorts that her New York family is technically his too and therefor doesn’t count; that five days is, in actuality, an extended weekend; she wants a diamond ring, so he has to wait until he can afford one before proposing; and that he really shouldn’t be nervous about meeting her dad, he doesn’t expect a whole lot from eighteen year old boys anyways, and that the step-whatever’s have greatly improved over the last few years. He replies that he is not a boy, he is a man, and he has saved the world, for Zeus’ sake. She points out that she has saved the world too, twice, and took a fucking knife for him, watch your mouth Jackson. He knows her well enough by then to know when to fear for his sex life, and gets online to begrudgingly look for inexpensive tickets.  
&  
Percy’s card is rejected three times, he gets two calls from the company attempting to convince him that his own actions on the Frontier website are fraudulent activity, and he winds up hyperventilating into the phone as the woman on the other end attempts to calm him down. Annabeth takes over ticket duty- sending him into their room to lie down for a little while- and her card is accepted on the first try. He buries his face in a pillow and screams while she rubs his back and tries not to laugh because, Yes Percy, she knows it’s not funny, and no, she’s not laughing inside. Okay, Percy, maybe a little, and don’t hit her on the shoulder with the pillow, because she will consider that a challenge, and she always wins pillow fights, he knows that.  
They arrive at the airport and promptly get trapped in the world’s longest line for airport security of all time, ever. They then proceed to make the line infinitely longer when a TSA officer with four eyes and a long, reptilian tail attempts to confiscate Riptide and Percy is forced to beg for it back because he swears Officer, he wasn’t planning on using it on any well-behaved airport employees who are just trying to make an honest day’s Drachma. He makes Annabeth promise that they will never fly from LaGuardia again, that they will make the extra effort to fly from JFK, where the worst they will deal with will be the wind spirits at Dunkin’ Donuts, and she promises him that they could fly from Newark if he wanted, but please don’t want to do that, because it’s in New Jersey, and buys him a Boston Cream when he reminds himself how much he loves Dunkin’ Donuts. She drinks coffee and smiles at him and tells him she loves him and he reminds her that he loves her more, and that she should buy a donut that he can burn for Zeus in the bathroom, and she does so, because his card keeps getting declined and, really, appeasing the sky god is pretty important before air travel.  
&  
He sets off the smoke alarm, but is delighted to find that the security team that responds is entirely comprised of Harpies, who all agree that, though an unorthodox sacrifice with so many mortals to choose from, an offering sounds like an okay excuse. They all swear on the Styx that if he does it again, though, they will eat him. He tells them that it sounds like a fair deal, and sprints away before Annabeth gets worried about him.  
She holds his hand for the entire flight, and he at first thinks it’s because she knows how he feels about planes, but he later realizes, when she tightens her grip as the plane goes through turbulence, that flying long distances drags up unpleasant memories for both of them. He runs his thumb over hers and she leans against him and he thinks that maybe air travel isn’t as bad as it used to be.

&  
It’s storming when they touch down, and Percy tries his hardest not to panic when a clap of thunder shakes the plane as its landing gear reaches down towards the tarmac. Annabeth clutches his hand until the flight attendent announces that they can leave the plane, at which point she lets go of his hand, grabs her carry-on, and sprints out of the plane, into the airport. He is left to wait in the line to exit the plane, trying to resist the panic at just how close everyone is to him. Someone breathes down his neck and he steps forward, nearly tripping over the ankles of the man in front of him.  
&  
She kisses him as they stand on the curb, waiting for her father to pick them up, lacing her fingers behind his neck. She smells like her, and maybe a little of the foaming anti-bacterial soap in the airport bathrooms, and it gives him a kind of headache he doesn’t really mind.  
They don’t break apart until her father pulls up next to them, laying on the horn for a few seconds. Percy jumps away from Annabeth, blushing, but she keeps a straight face as she climbs into the backseat with him, introducing him to her father, who eyes their intertwined hands through the rear-view mirror, and doesn’t say much of anything.  
Annabeth assures Percy that her father doesn’t actually hate him later that night, sitting on the back step of her house, their hands still intertwined, glasses of lemonade by their feet, in something that feels like a kind of normal teenaged relationship, some sort of stolen domesticity, and he pretends to believe her, and she changes the subject to his possible credit card fraud, and he groans.


End file.
